Steels have been used by mankind for at least 3,000 years and are widely utilized in industry comprising over 80% by weight of all metallic alloys in industrial use. Existing steel technology is based on manipulating the eutectoid transformation. The first step is to heat up the alloy into the single phase region (austenite) and then cool or quench the steel at various cooling rates to form multiphase structures which are often combinations of ferrite, austenite, and cementite. Depending on the cooling rate of the steel at solidification or thermal treatment, a wide variety of characteristic microstructures (i.e. pearlite, bainite, and martensite) can be obtained with a wide range of properties. This manipulation of the eutectoid transformation has resulted in the wide variety of steels available nowadays.
Non-stainless steels may be understood herein to contain less than 10.5% of chromium and are typically represented by plain carbon steel which is by far the most widely used kind of steel. The properties of carbon steel depend primarily on the amount of carbon it contains. With very low carbon content (below 0.05% C), these steels are relatively ductile and have properties similar to pure iron. They cannot be modified by heat treatment. They are inexpensive, but engineering applications may be restricted to non-critical components and general paneling work.
Pearlite structure formation in most alloy steels requires less carbon than in ordinary carbon steels. The majority of these alloy steels is low carbon material and alloyed with a variety of elements in total amounts of between 1.0% and 50% by weight to improve its mechanical properties. Lowering the carbon content to the range of 0.10% to 0.30%, along with some reduction in alloying elements increases the weldability and formability of the steel while maintaining its strength. Such alloys are classed as a high-strength low-alloy steels (HSLA) exhibiting tensile strengths from 270 to 700 MPa.
Advanced High-Strength Steels (AHSS) steels may have tensile strengths greater than 700 MPa and include types such as martensitic steels (MS), dual phase (DP) steels, transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) steels, and complex phase (CP) steels. As the strength level increases, the ductility of the steel generally decreases. For example, low-strength steel (LSS), high-strength steel (HSS) and AHSS may indicate tensile elongations at levels of 25% to 55%, 10% to 45% and 4% to 30%, respectively.
Much higher strength (up to 2500 MPa) has been achieved in maraging steels which are carbon free iron-nickel alloys with additions of cobalt, molybdenum, titanium and aluminum. The term maraging is derived from the strengthening mechanism, which is transforming the alloy to martensite with subsequent age hardening. The common, non stainless grades of maraging steels contain 17% to 18% nickel, 8% to 12% cobalt, 3% to 5% molybdenum and 0.2% to 1.6% titanium. The relatively high price of maraging steels (they are several times more expensive than the high alloy tool steels produced by standard methods) significantly restricts their application in many areas (for example, automotive industry). They are highly sensitive to nonmetallic inclusions, which act as stress raisers and promote nucleation of voids and microcracks leading to a decrease in ductility and fracture toughness of the steel. To minimize the content of nonmetallic inclusions, the maraging steels are typically melted under vacuum resulting in high cost processing.